President Filipe Nyusi on 4 August inaugurated a road in Mueda district, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, which provides easier access to the border with Tanzania. The 70-kilometre paved road runs from Moma to Negomano. It ends at the Unity Bridge over the Rovuma River, which forms the boundary between Mozambique and Tanzania.
The first stone for the new road was laid in October 2018. It was budgeted at two billion meticais (US$31.3 million), and financed by the African Development Bank (ADB).
President Nyusi told the ceremony that the road will facilitate trade and the movement of people between the two countries. It would reduce journey time and the cost of maintaining vehicles.
"This road will facilitate national, international and cross-border trade, contributing to an increase in incomes, and a growth of the economy", he stated.
Paving the Roma-Negomano road, President Nyusi continued, is part of the government's vision of connecting the entire country by road, "from the Rovuma to the Maputo" (the rivers marking Mozambique's northern and southern limits), from the village of Negomano to the resort of Ponta de Ouro (on the frontier with the South African province of Kwazulu-Natal).
"The Roma-Negomano road is a palpable asset for implementing the goals of the African Continental Free Trade Area", the President added.
He believed the road will stimulate tourism since it is near the eastern end of the Niassa National Reserve, the country's largest conservation area. It could also develop agricultural value chains and promote the industrialisation of the continent.
"The road crosses the buffer zone of the Niassa National Reserve", said President Nyusi, "and so we are asking motorists to respect the speed limits to avoid traffic accidents and running over wild animals that are part of the biodiversity we want to protect".
He added that the road expresses the dream of the founding Presidents of Mozambique and Tanzania, Samora Machel and Julius Nyerere, who had always worked to bring the two peoples closer together.
